


Yammering

by recrudescence



Category: Firefly
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal takes on a job that entails harvesting yams.</p><p>Co-written with Nakeno.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yammering

Jayne, standing in a garden and scowling. Grumbling about prissy pretty boys and their sensitive skin and how come he gets all the grunt work out here digging up stupid-ass root vegetables?

 

Mal _would_ take a job that involved harvesting yams. Whatever pays. Better than a herd of cows.

 

'Course, the man didn't mention the damn things were still in the _ground_.

 

"Yams.  Right.  Okay.  Where are they?"  Briskly clapping his hands. "Let's get'em loaded. Wait, what... we gotta... _dig 'em_ _up_?"

 

Cue Jayne in another cunning hat. Wash ready with another fearsome brow mop. Mal slowly realizing maybe this is why the payoff is so good.

 

Of course, with Mal's luck he’s already _taken_ the job. Not that he hasn't ever _farmed_ before, but...still.

 

_Still_.  Dear Lord.

 

Zoe staring at the field, eyebrow lifting. "We plan on this, sir?"

 

Stabbing yams with a hand shovel and cursing that this is why he _volunteered_ for the damn war in the _first_ place and, another thing, this is why he has a _ship_. So he doesn't have to _dig in the dirt_.

 

River more than content to _play _in the dirt, which is funny and annoying at the same time. Half-loony, Core-born brat. Simon leaning on a shovel and looking confused when nothing happens. Kaylee all too happy to correct his technique. Jayne wandering by with a wheelbarrow full of yams and watching Mal with his shovel, "You ain't so bad at that, captain."  

  


"_Bite me_."

 

"...could, if y'wanna."

 

Kaylee going on about how she doesn't mind it, seeing as how she used to date a farmer's son and all. By which she probably means they'd sex it up in the hayloft, but Mal’s too preoccupied by getting more and more _pissed _to care.

 

Stupid, stupid vegetables...

 

Book makes candied yams for all with some of the undergrown ones, which look and smell wonderful, but Mal wants to throw them across the kitchen anyway. He'd rather go fucking hungry, thankseverso.

 

Jayne, of course, just goes digging right in.

 

He'll take seconds, please. Might as well, since they did all the work. No sense in self-deprivation after all that grueling yam-hauling. Food's food and at least the Shepherd can _cook_ it.

 

The captain stomping off to his bed and Jayne just stomping right after him. Soon as he cleans his plate, anyway.

 

Mal is not amused. "Oh, God, you even _smell_ like yams!"

 

And Jayne gives him a good, hearty secondhand taste of them. What the hell's wrong with fresh produce, anyway?

 

Which makes Mal squirm and wriggle out of his grasp and _curse_. He's overreacting, and he knows it, but he really can't stand what went on today and how it made threads to things back in his past that he'd rather just leave behind.

 

And the fact that Jayne's getting to _read_ him decently is not particularly settling. "It's not you," he explains. Though he doesn't need to.

  


"I know," is all Jayne says.

  


"Well, now it _is_ you," because that was just damn irritating to hear.

  


"Figured that much, too."

 

Try to shoo him back to the doctor. Let a man screw you just once in the wee hours of the morn and all of a sudden he's _knowing_ things? That's not sitting with him any better than the gorram yams. "Go find someone else to bother, Jayne."

 

"Not as fun as pestering you, captain-- you get all... riled."

 

With a look on his face that has Mal rolling his eyes, even though he clearly remembers getting that same expression leveled at him from over his shoulder while Jayne was _in_ him--yeah, best not to think on that.

 

"'m sure Simon's up to the challenge." Popping the hatch and starting down his ladder as he says it.

 

And Jayne hunches down, calling after him, echoing; "Want I should fetch him?" Teasing him now. He's really not in the mood. Only, apparently, Jayne _knows_ that.

 

Whatever that means.

 

Mal doesn't even answer. Job's going smooth so far, all the gorram cargo finally squared away, and he damn well deserves some time to himself.

 

The captain flat on his bunk, teeth gritted, wondering how the hell Jayne and Simon have gone so long without giving anything away because he's pretty damn sure _he_ hasn't been half as smooth.

 

Jayne sauntering back to the lounge and Simon, still at the table, giving him a quick _look_. Simon, who just shrugs his shoulders, like either way is fine by him. He's funny about getting in the captain's so-called _business_. All that girly _consideration_ stuff Jayne just scoffs at.

 

And Mal having his mud-soaked roots kicked up in his face all over again hasn't helped settle his roiling thoughts any. Half ready to get on the P.A. and tell the entire ship he’s gone and slept with the both of them. That way, it wouldn't burden him anymore. But that's a hell of an idea, and not one he plans on putting into motion. Hell, he puts up with Zoe and Wash every damn day; by rights, he should be able to get by with his own far more discreet goings-on. Though there's the whole thing with him being the leader of this flying umbrella and not wanting to have that undermined, despite Jayne's claim not to want anything of him other than his _ass_.

 

With the sun on the back of his neck, the sweat under his shirt, the earth gritting up under his nails-- even the smell of the dirt itself, every little thing digging it in and irking him more and more. He didn't care to think about bygones, much less talk about them to anyone. Jayne wouldn't bother him with talk, but his mind is too fogged up for anything but thought. And Simon, well, Simon would be like talking to some fancy shrink, and he's never cared for those, either. Fighting or fucking; they both work the same, gets it all out, only he's not used to having the latter available to him so readily and he's all but forgotten how. He remembers how leathery his mom's hands were, and how they became soft somehow when she'd squeeze his shoulder or ruffle his hair. He knew he'd miss her when he left, but he was angry enough at her to go, too. His father, well, it wasn't like he didn't come around, time and again, when he needed to hole up, anyhow-- but Mal would just rather think he'd never met his dad. Easier that way. Every time, mom would let him in the door. _Every_ time. When he was younger, it made him all manner of excited. As he got older, it didn't do much other than piss him off.

 

Can't get the damn things off his ship fast enough.

 

The pay _is_ good. He won't argue that. Still, he vows that he'll never take a job like that, no matter how good the money.

 

As long as he's not gouging things out of the ground, he's good.

 

When their little piece of nowhere got wind of unification, there were already squads forming, recruiting had been going on for four months beforehand, in case of the worst. In secret, of course, since there was no need to alarm the other side. It ended up being the worst. And more. By the time Mal took himself down to registration, they'd begun drafting. Most, however, were more than happy to go-- _needed_ to go. Because little farmlands like the Reynolds’s would be overrun with taxes and sprawl and factories and big business makers with their irrigation and year-round greenhouses. He had more reason than one to carry himself off to volunteering. Wasn't like he didn't know how to handle a gun, anyhow.

 

Seeing as how he used to hang out with this old tracker that lived on the outskirts of town-- by himself in this cabin, hermit-like. Taught him to trap and shoot and a numerous other damn useful things. More than his father ever taught him, anyhow.

 

He hates thinking about it, anyway. Rolling over onto his side and laying his head on his arm, staring across the length of his quarters.


End file.
